More than 10,000 hectares of land in Taoyuan were designated as controlled areas in which the concentrations of heavy metals in effluent are capped, in the first such wastewater management designation in the nation amid repeated cases of soil contamination.
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said it approved the establishment of the control areas in regions where the Sinjie River (新街溪), Pushin River (埔心溪) and Huangcian River (黃墘溪) flow, where repeated cases of pollution have been reported, EPA Department of Water Quality Director Yeh Chun-hung (葉俊宏) said.
“Water quality monitoring over the past five years showed that the Sinjie River had satisfied only 53 percent of the standards for copper levels, while the Pushin River had only 17 percent. There are 145 hectares of farmland drawing irrigation water from rivers that are designated as contaminated, suggesting severe pollution problems in the area,” Yeh said.
Pushin River has been called the “taro milk river” and “bubble river” due to the illegal discharge of industrial wastewater, he said.
The 10,100-hectare control areas cover the city’s Dayuan (大園), Lujhu (蘆竹), Taoyuan, Jhungli (中壢), Bade (八德), Pingjhen (平鎮), Longtan (龍潭) and Dasi (大溪) districts, encompassing more than half of the city’s 13 districts, Yeh said.
The control areas are further divided into first and second-degree control areas, where different discharge regulations apply, he said.
In first-degree control areas, where effluent-receiving bodies of water are not qualified as irrigation source, the effluent concentration levels of copper, zinc, nickel, cadmium, chromium and hexavalent chromium are to be reduced by between 60 percent and 95 percent, so that water quality can be restored to levels safe for irrigation, Yeh said.
The establishment of new plants will be prohibited in first-degree areas of control and renewal of the licenses of existing plants would be strictly reviewed, Yeh said.
“In the past, licenses were issued to every plant that met the requirements for wastewater management with no exceptions, but that must be changed for a more effective control,” he said.
In second-degree control zones, where effluent-receiving bodies of water are clean enough to be used in irrigation, new plants would be granted operating licenses only if they guarantee to treat wastewater according to standards of a first-degree control zone, he said.
There are 27 businesses in the control areas that discharge heavy metals-containing sewage, including metal polishing companies and printed circuit board manufacturers including a plant of Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc, the world’s biggest chip packager.
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